The joys of homeownership

Yes, this is all closely related to Murphy's Law and is quickly followed by the "falling domino" principle. So far, we have had the electrician out twice. Once to check up on some things related to the inspection report (making sure it is okay to have the circuit breaker box in the stairwell, replacing GFCI switches, covering outlets) another follow-up visit because - all of the sudden - the overhead living room, dining room, bedroom and office lights wouldn't turn on. That last one was just a wire failure and needed to be replaced.

Next up, an alarm company. We went with Ackerman after a lot of research and a friend's referral. Our house came with no fire alarms or carbon monoxide alarms, so we had a fire alarm hard wired into the system as well. We have a pretty extensive alarm system now - wireless as well (so no thief can cut our phone wire). We plan on hitting up the fire department for some free alarms for other rooms too. If you are looking at an alarm system in Atlanta, e-mail me and I will explain our decision to go with Ackerman. If you decide to go with Ackerman, we would love to refer you to our sales rep (we get something like 5% reward).

Today we had an HVAC company come out to work on our side wall vent system for our gas powered heating systems. The fan comes on after every shower, every long dish washing session, every laundry load . . . and sometimes just because it feels like it. It is stinkin' loud. I mean rattles the floor loud. New construction code directs vents out the roof, but with older homes they are usually vented out a wall. I asked about this and the tech said that it looked like it used to be naturally vented up the chimney flue (there is a hole in the brick in the basement part of the fireplace) and someone switched it to the side vent at some point.

Which leads us to the chimney sweep coming out next week. He is going to inspect/clean the chimney to see if we can vent out the flue. We might need to line the flue with anodized aluminum ($$), but we are praying that we don't have to do this. When it passes inspection, we will have the HVAC guy back to switch the fumes back to vent out the stack (which unlike the fan is completely SILENT) and rehook up the gas to the ceramic gas heater in the living room fireplace. He is also going to show us how to properly insulate our registers and do some general maintenance ourselves.

Again, why were these unhooked/changed? Dunno. May never know, although I hope it isn't because of a problem with the chimney.

For now, the HVAC tech, Jay, took out the loose, broken-off blades in the squirrel cage fan (this was partially responsible for the noise) and steadied the fan considerably cutting down on noise, but not completely.

As well all know, spending money always leads to spending more. We walked through our inspection list with Jay to see what else needs to be done immediately vs. before the summer hits next year. As we suspected, a lot of the ductwork in the partially finished basement is a little shoddy. Parts of that will have to be redone/unkinked before even starting the work in the basement. The previous owner built a hallway downstairs that closed off our supply register in our bedroom. No wonder we were hot and there was no air movement!

At some point (this is a pun that I have cleverly inserted. You will recognize this as you read on, although it will only produce an unforgiving groan and no laughter whatsoever), we will have to get some brick repointing done since during the recent torrential rains, we discovered the foundation leaks in the basement. We did get to see the house after a mild rain before we bought it (and it appeared to be totally dry) and the inspector said that the brick work was still good with very little crumble and the previous owner SWORE that it was a dry basement.

Ah. Well. He said, she said. You live and you learn. I could also see this leading to having to reinstall a gutter system (that was taken down by the previous owner) to draw water away from the side of the house and brick foundation. I know why he did this. Craftsman houses don't have gutter systems and he wanted to get the house looking a little more authentic. Craftsman owners, if you've experienced this problem - what did you do?

Have I mentioned that our lawn mower stopped working?